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Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at TCS
Highlights
- TCS believes and recognizes that a diverse and inclusive workforce is necessary to drive innovation, foster creativity, and build a wide talent base.
- We are a global organization with a workforce across five continents, comprising over 600,000 employees who belong to a diverse 153 nationalities. 35.7% of our employees are women; 88% are millennial. Our commitment to diversity and inclusion at the workplace is reflected in policy and action.
- There are 13 Employee resource groups (ERGs) at TCS that offer a safe environment for employees to bond, brainstorm on newer ideas, find solutions, and share common experiences, lessons, and concerns.
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Diversity at TCS
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is a global conglomerate with a workforce across five continents, 153 nationalities, and over 600,000 employees, of which 35.7% are women.
88% of TCS’ workforce comprises millennials. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) is an imperative for us as we seek out the best available talent to create value for our clients and the communities we work within.
In 2022, TCS reached a milestone of 200,000 women as part of its workforce. We are committed to creating an ecosystem of equity across genders and enhancing capability through behavioural and mindset shifts.
2023 marked the second consecutive year of TCS featuring in the Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index (GEI). GEI is a modified market capitalization-weighted index that aims to track the performance of public companies committed to transparency in gender-data reporting.
Women in the workforce
TCS recognizes that a diverse and inclusive workforce is necessary to drive innovation, foster creativity, and nurture a talent pool that is as wide as it is deep, worldwide.
Toward this end, our focus is to enable a better representation of women through sustained intervention at every level.
Customized offerings are curated in-house to offer support to every woman associate at each juncture of the employee life cycle. This includes maintaining clear and current succession plans and having strong leadership programs. We believe in providing women access to career development programs and maintaining an open channel for continual feedback through mentoring and coaching. The goal is to propel women toward taking on leadership roles.
We are founding partners for national initiatives such as US2020, IMPACT2030, CSforAll, STEMconnector, Million Women Mentors (MWM), and the Women’s Business Collaborative. As part of this outreach, we now have over 2.7 million mentors for girls and women in STEM through MWM. Our outreach has empowered thousands of women, underserved youth, and veterans to careers in technology through NPower and the National Center for Women in Technology (NCWIT).
TCS mentors women employees to take on leadership roles. (Photo used for representation only)
Our Policies
Prevention of Sexual Harassment (POSH):
This explicitly defines what constitutes sexual harassment and what are redressal processes. The training is mandatory in countries where POSH training is a regulatory requirement. TCS India has a well-defined policy that details the reasons, entitlement provisions, and the procedure of availing time-off under maternity leave for pregnancy or childbirth-related reasons. .
Special maternity leave
This is an additional one month of paid special maternity leave allowed for TCS’ women employees on a case-to-case basis. The maternity leave policy is thoughtfully designed to consider the diverse geographic spread of TCS' workforce across the globe and in accordance with the law of the land.
In addition to this, a flexible and remote working policy exists for TCS, India, employees that defines provisions for associates to work remotely and draws out the responsibilities and obligations of associates and other key stakeholders following an evaluation of individual cases. A flexible work policy takes into consideration childcare, expectant women associates, or persons with disability.
Other DEI-driven policies
TCS has an active HIV/Aids & Disability policy, within the larger DEI policy umbrella, for its associates in India. The TCS, India, policy for International Assignments (from India to other countries) details that employees can include their ‘domestic partner’ (including same-sex partners) and ‘step-child’ as travelling individuals.
The TCS, India, policy for International Assignments (from India to other countries) is as follows: Employees will be able to include their ‘domestic partner’ (including same-sex partners) and ‘step-child’ as travelling individuals as part of the International Assignments policy for TCS, India, employees.
LGBTQi+ inclusion
TCS aims to foster an environment where LGBTQ+ employees feel respected and involved. The organization has upgraded its policies and health offerings, in addition to making workplaces more inclusive and spearheading monthly mentoring sessions. We have also made efforts toward making our infrastructure more inclusive, inclusive washrooms being one such example.
Coaching, mentoring
At TCS, coaching initiatives for all employee segments have played a pivotal role in building future leaders and a culture of learning. Our coaching programs include strength-based coaching that leverage individual personality attributes by tapping into an employee's innate personal power. TCS holds the distinction of having won the International Prism Award 2021 for coaching by the International Coaching Federation (ICF).
TCS Education and Sensitization initiatives ensure associates gain a deeper understanding of DEI. The Diversity Basics program reiterates DEI concepts and explains specific diverse identity segments, including inclusive language recommendations, and understanding biases and appropriate nomenclature for workplace use. TCS also has a Culture and Diversity web-based mandatory training designed to help employees understand the fundamental concepts of diversity across the spectrum, including gender, LGBTQ+, people with disabilities, and generational diversity.
TCS' Diversity Basics program explains DEI concepts, including the use of inclusive language at the workplace.
PwD, and neurodiversity
TCS recognizes the importance of including persons with disabilities (PWDs) and of promoting neurodiversity across the organization.
We are committed to creating an environment that values and accommodates individuals with diverse abilities, ensuring that everyone can contribute their unique talent to our collective success. From accessible physical spaces to inclusive hiring practices, we actively work to eliminate barriers and promote equal opportunities for all.
TCS is an equal opportunity employer. (Photo used for representation only)
Accessibility
As an organization, we recognize that accessibility and flexibility at the workplace are important considerations if we are to be truly inclusive in extending opportunities to all, including those that are not typically abled.
Access is a term that emerged from the Human Rights discourse, United Nations Conventions for Rights of Persons with a Disability (UN CRPD) 2006. It has recognized information accessibility as a basic human right and has spoken of the “right to access” social, economic, educational, health, and employment resources. The interpretation of access has changed with diverse identity groups, contexts, and geographies, and TCS recognizes this.
At TCS, we define accessibility as the ability to access products, services, devices, and environments by all people irrespective of ability, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design.
TCS supports the spirit and intent of any activity that creates an inclusive environment and meets global accessibility standards.
Inclusion at TCS is driven by the vision of our founder to build human and social capital through a value framework of Diversity, Equity, Equality, Inclusion, Belonging, and Justice.
The TCS inclusion motto is “inclusion without exception” and our vision is to achieve a sustained culture of inclusion through the principles of equity and belonging. Our motto is guided by our beliefs and commitments toward:
- Inclusive technology - Equal access to technology
- Inclusive workplaces - Enable the able and enable ability
- Inclusive culture – Infuse a culture of celebrating difference
At TCS, we have a Centre of Excellence (CoE) for Accessibility and Inclusive Design Research. Established in 2013, the vision for the CoE is to integrate accessibility and inclusion within the DNA of the organization. This resonates with the TCS belief that accessibility is all about eliminating barriers and providing technology benefits to everyone irrespective of their physical abilities and special needs. Inclusive design and accessibility consideration not only help persons with disabilities PWDs, but also enhances experience of typical users.
The organization remains focused on ensuring all persons, irrespective of race, nationality, ethnic origin have equal opportunity without discrimination when it comes to being hired, allocated, promoted, and retained.
Supplier diversity
TCS has a supplier diversity program that is expanding globally within a larger organizational vision and framework of creating human and social sustainability.
Our objectives include:
- Actively seeking out certified diverse suppliers that can provide competitive, high-quality goods and services and whose business model is aligned with our business strategy
- Ensuring the inclusion of diverse suppliers as a part of our strategic sourcing and procurement process
- Leveraging our supplier diversity results to meet our clients’ supplier diversity requirements
TCS’ Mentor-Protégé program intends to move toward enabling an end-to-end human and social sustainability model through a supplier growth relationship. Our supplier diversity handbook aims to educate all stakeholders toward making supplier diversity real and a seamless process.
Stats you should know
Celebrating the ERG
Celebration Months is a program at TCS where we ensure that there is employee engagement across all locations and geographies.
The celebrations are aligned to UN- established themes for each month as well as individual- themed celebration months internal to TCS. The sessions are planned according to the theme of the month.
The level of community participation is the one essential success element for maintaining the effect of all DEI programs. Employee resource groups (ERGs), which offer a safe environment for communities to gather, brainstorm, find solutions, and share experiences, lessons, and concerns, are the workplace facilitators for this. ERGs offer a platform for opinions, and ideas to collide, opening the door for deeper dialogues around inclusion and diversity.
Each segment is matched to at least one dedicated ERG and other connected ones among the 13 ERGs that TCS has. These employee-led ERGs serve as a foundation for the organization's long-term development of its social and human resources. Community members have established core committees to supervise the design and implementation of strategies that speak to fostering agency and involvement.
The ERGs at TCS aim to:
- Create a safe space that encourages employees to bring their authentic selves to work and feel psychologically safe.
- Build a platform for the community to contribute to the organizational Diversity, Equity & Inclusion strategy through strategic cross-functional teams (CFTs)
- Co-create and curate education and development programs, enabling inclusive and accessible systems and infrastructure
- Mobilize allies of diversity across the organization
- Create opportunities to support personal and professional aspirations
TCS' Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) encourage employees to bring their authentic selves to work. (Photo used for representation only)
Listed below are the 13 employee resource groups that are fully functional and active at TCS.
- ENABLE (Network of People with Disability and Allies): This is a network of associates with disability and disability allies. It is a space for the community to connect and share stories and concerns, including solutions to access, learning, and development.
- PACT (Parents Allies Caregivers Together): At TCS, this ERG includes associates who have children with disabilities and serves as a platform to share their unique issues and challenges. PACT, or Parents Allies Caregivers Together, is the ERG for these associates at global and local levels.
- UNO Parenting (Network of Single Parents and Allies): Along with all the joys of parenthood, single parenting brings with it a fair share of responsibilities and emotions. UNO Parenting helps single parents and allies to break stereotypes and encourage, educate, and empower each other.
- ARISE (Network of African American and Black Associates): This is a network for African American and Black associates. The focus is on the representation, engagement, and development of the community.
- QOLORS (Network of LGBTQ+* community and Allies): From the spectrum of the colors in a rainbow, emerges the QOLORs, where "Q" stands for Queer. The ERG explores intersectionality and showcases a true example of "respect for the individual" and bringing our whole selves together forward.
(*Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer+) - BRIDGE (Building Relationships In Diverse Generations): This is a platform for associates from different generations to connect, share experiences and thoughts, collaborate, do away with age-based biases, and eventually discover ways of working together with enhanced synergy.
- UNIDOS (LatinX / Hispanic Community and Allies): This is an ERG that enables the LatinX / Hispanic ethnic community to engage and help create a safe space that encourages representation and development within the organization.
- NEUROWONDER: A network of persons who are neurodiverse and their allies. This is to create a safe space for neurodiverse associates to engage with each other and their allies. This is an opportunity for the community to feel valued and socially connected, with boundaries and engagement parameters defined by them.
- TCS NOW (Network of Outstanding Women): A global employee resource group for women in TCS to connect, collaborate, and seek support from each other. CS Now is diversified into Women in Networks (sales, banking, insurance, technology, and consulting) to enable learning and development.
- Champions of Equity: This ERG aims to create a workplace that is diverse and equitable. A platform where differences are valued and celebrated.
- SALUTE: This is an ERG that connects veterans and their allies to further the recruitment and development of TCS veterans. The mission is to honor the legacy of veteran support and mutual encouragement through shared experiences that foster professional growth, retention, and civic engagement.
- accessPower: A network of associates that believe in fostering Accessibility for Inclusion.
- ETHOS: A resource group for mothers- to- be & returning mothers (from long leaves) in TCS to connect, collaborate, and seek support from each other.
TCS' ERGs ensure that different employee groups come together as communities within the TCS universe to engage, share, and build newer ideas as they each bring their authentic selves to work.
